Evil

Evil means something which is morally bad or wicked.[1] It is the opposite of good. People may say that an action which hurts people or breaks certain rules such as the Ten Commandments is evil. A person or a group that does evil things may also be called evil.

In theology, there is a question: If there is a God, why does God let evil happen? Some think that evil proves that there is not a God. Others think that God lets evil happen so that people can choose not to do evil.[2]

The study of good and evil in philosophy is called ethics. Ethics tries to explain why some actions are good and other actions are evil. It attempts to give all kinds of answers for how to tell evil from good.

Arguments such as these are about the logical problem of evil. They attempt to show that the assumed propositions lead to a logicalcontradiction and so cannot all be correct.

A common response is that God can exist with and allow evil in order to achieve a greater good. Some philosophers accept that arguments such as "God allows evil in order to achieve the greater good of free will" are logically possible and thus solve the logical problem of evil.[6] Since the aim is only to defeat the assertion that God and evil are logically incompatible, even a highly implausible instance of God's coexistence with evil is sufficient for the purpose.[7]

Philosophies of science have approached the problem from the angle of empiricism. For logical positivism the issue with God is the lack of any independent method of verification. In their view, this makes the proposition "God exists", not true or false, but meaningless.[8] A similar position points to the lack of any way the proposition might be falsified.[9]